One Big Happy Ever After Family
by neworldiscoverer
Summary: AU one-shot from Snow's surprising perspective when she takes a closer look at the relationship between the Savior and Storybrooke's mayor- It all started with Disney. (The Disney Channel, to be more specific) Yeah, go figure. Even Snow had to appreciate the irony.


**A/N;** I've only seen a few OUAT episodes, about the last third of Season 3. I saw a corresponding gifset for the ending scene of 3x17 (the Charmings-Swan-Mills gang having dinner together at Granny's) and just started writing. I apologize for anything I may have overlooked that I might only realize once I watch the series from the very beginning this summer. I think it's pretty obvious who I already ship...

* * *

It all started with Disney.

(The Disney Channel, to be more specific)

Yeah, go figure.

Even Snow had to appreciate the irony.

Last night she had sat on the couch and watched The Parent Trap (the new one with Lindsey Lohan playing both twins) with Henry and unintentionally stayed and watched the whole thing through because she got invested in the plot. While the credits rolled, her grandson (It's still weird to call him that, weird to think, no matter how true. It's just. She doesn't feel like a grandmother. Barely feels like a mother, to be completely honest. She supposes that'll change within a few weeks, due date coming up and all that. Oh god.) looked down into the empty popcorn bowl between them and swirled his fingers through the leftover kernels that hadn't popped. "I wish my parents would have a happy ending like that," he had whispered and Snow was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to have heard that so she pretended that she hadn't and had ruffled her hand through Henry's soft brown hair on her way to take the bowl to the kitchen.

It takes a full 24 hours to hit her though and when it does they are sitting around a table at Granny's overindulging on greasy burgers and fries. They, all five of them, look the part. It's nothing short of a miracle, but they truly look like a family. Having a family night out, enjoying a meal together. Henry has stars in his eyes, showing Regina how to salt her ketchup instead of sprinkling the condiment directly on her fries, Emma exclaiming that he "stole" her "secret recipe." The former Evil Queen smiles, actually really truly smiles (what is going on here, seriously) and the three of them burst out into a fit of giggles at Emma's clearly mock indignation ("how dare you give away the royal family secret recipe?") and Regina's sly, teasing tone ("it seems you've forgotten, Miss Swan, that I am royalty, too") and Henry stops trying to explain himself and just beams at his mothers.

Snow had assumed he meant Emma and Neal.

But.

Henry had said: "I wish my parents would have a happy ending like that."

Not: "I wish my parents would get back together."

There is a subtle difference, she notes.

(Why couldn't he have been clearer? Something like: "I wish my biological parents would get back together" would have been helpful. Heck, even: "I wish my moms would hook up" would lend some clarity.)

She feels like throwing up, or, alternately, throwing a celebratory party.

It's very confusing, to say the least.

Either way, she must blanch something terrible because then David is squeezing her arm, concern all but bleeding out his eyes.

This is crazy.

This is absolutely bloody batshit motherfrickin' crazy.

"I'm fine. Um. The baby's just... being rather active tonight. I think perhaps the food doesn't settle well with him or her," she says. Not a lie, but not entirely the truth either.

Emma gives her a full-force sympathetic look and opens her mouth, presumably to offer some mother-to-mother advice, which Snow really is not interested in getting from her daughter, thanks but no thanks, some other time or maybe not ever, but her Prince Charming comes to the rescue with some obscure spewing of a paragraph she's sure he memorized out of that pregnancy book she found at Gold's shop (which, well, she is impressed that he even read the book "Natural Childbirth for the Modern 15th Century Woman") and it's possible that Regina may have kicked the Savior under the table.

The excuse works well enough so that Mary Margaret can tuck David's arm around her and lean against his shoulder and not say much for the rest of the meal. She watches instead and wonders how on earth she's been so blind all this time. There is such truth behind the idea of seeing only what you want to see. She could practically teach it at this point, open an instructional seminar on ignoring what's right in front of you.

Regina is the easiest to watch. Mary Margaret is sitting right beside her so the regal mayor of Storybrooke doesn't glance her way very often. Also there's the whole rather obvious fact that they hate one another, though that seems to be sated for the time being while they act like a family for once.

It's just weird, is all.

She looks at it all from the perspective of an outsider, if the outsider were from the Enchanted Forest.

Let's see... Snow White and Prince Charming, rulers of the kingdom, dining with their long-lost daughter, the princess and her heir. Oh and the Evil Queen, also known as Snow's evil step-mother, is there, too.

Um, no.

No.

That doesn't even work.

No matter how you put it, that. Does. Not. Work.

Hm, okay, so what if the outsider looking in was just a human from this earthly realm? Suspiciously young grandparents having dinner with their grandson and both his adoptive and biological mother.

There.

That at least sounds a bit more normal.

Too bad they are anything but.

Mary Margaret cannot get her mind off of this.

Henry sleeps over and plays more Grand Theft Auto on the XBox with Emma than actual sleeping and they are still going at it when she and David turn in for the night.

She brings it up in the bedroom. "David..." He looks at her, nothing but devotion in his baby blues and she reminds herself how silly it is to think that he'd judge her for this. It does little to build her courage. "Emma and Regina. You don't think- Regina and Emma... Right?" She didn't know she'd also lost the ability to speak along with her ability to not get sucked into Disney movies. Her prince looks, understandably, very lost and confused. "What?"

Snow huffs out a quiet breath, smoothing her hands down the front of her boxy maternity blouse and sitting on the edge of their bed. "I think Henry wants his... mothers... to have a happily ever after. Together." David stares blankly at her. She knows very well how far out in left field she is standing. "As in a couple, David! Do you think this is true? Is it happening?" Once she's said it, gotten it out into the open, she claps her hand over her mouth.

She had watched Regina in the diner for a good length of time. The woman moved with poise and somehow made even eating a hamburger look completely decadent. Snow was a queen, sure, but she was fairly certain she would have never been able to pull off eating such a meal in her royal court attire, much less a powersuit such as the likes that Regina donned daily. The woman dabbed at the corner of her plump red lips with the paper napkin spread on her lap. Snow had drug her eyes away and let them land on her daughter.

Emma's hair looked like she had been the cook in the kitchen who'd fried up their burger patties and her plaid shirt was untucked, only the edge of her belt and clip-on badge showing. Her skinny jeans were practically glued to her thighs, the ends tucked into worn boots that looked like she had been born wearing, though Mary Margaret knew that this was not true. She may have not been her mother for very long, but she'd been there for her birth, that much was certain.

And that red pleather jacket. Need she say more?

Snow knows the saying. Opposites attract.

But THIS opposite? Surely not.

...surely not?

To his credit, David recovers fairly quickly. Snow rubs his back until he stops hacking. "Sorry," he wheezes. "Something- I think something just went down the wrong way."

"No, no... It's crazy. Isn't it? I shouldn't be having these thoughts. It's just- nevermind, honey," Snow says, flustered. Her cheeks flush with color and she rises to her feet very carefully and waddles to the bathroom to tend to her hygienic evening routine.

"The only way to know for certain is to ask Emma." Charming pauses to look at her across the room before pulling a shirt on over his head. He looks towards their door as if he's looking through it, down the hall to where Emma's bedroom is.

Snow, naturally, looks horrified at his suggestion.

"We can't ask her that, David!" she gasps, throwing her hand to her throat, the other curling around her rounded belly. "It's nonsense, only nonsense. I needed to get it out of my system, that's all."

But it looks like the wheels have been turning in her Prince's head. He shakes his dirty blond locks (Emma looks so much like him) and walks over to where she is standing, still in the threshold of the bathroom. His embrace is warm and right and true, but she cannot let herself fall into it like she wants to. Nerves and fear wrap their thin spider fingers around her insides and make them churn. She feels him press a kiss to the side of her head and hears him sigh. "Mary Margaret, you wouldn't have told me this if you didn't believe at least some part of it to be true."

Of course he was right.

Sometimes opposites can compliment one another. Perhaps this was more the case with the mayor and sheriff of Storybrooke. It could be that Emma's disarray lent itself to rumple Regina's rigid fastidiousness and the elegance of the brunette would serve to smooth out some of the blonde's rougher edges.

Certainly they spend enough time staring at each other.

"We shouldn't pry," she says, pulling herself out from the circle of his arms. "If it is so, if they are... If-" Snow rubs her hand across her face. She hates that she can't even bring herself to say it. Then again, is she really at fault? What with the tumultuous past (and that's putting it lightly) between the Savior and the Evil Queen, no one in their right mind, either woman included, would ever have come to this conclusion. For all means and purposes, peace should only exist with one of them dead (and certainly chaos would reign should it be the Savior who falls). "They would tell us. Eventually. Right? What do you think, David, really?"

His arms fall to his sides. "This is all theoretical," he starts.

Mary Margaret nods. "Of course."

"I don't think they are entirely compatible. Not from what I've seen and what I know of our daugh- Emma. They only barely get along as family and the fact that they even try is only due to Henry. Romantically..." He wrinkles his nose. "I cannot imagine it working without outside assistance. A push, if you will."

"Oh no." Snow puts her hand out as if this idea is something she can see and physically push away. "We both know enough not to meddle with such affairs! We of all people should know better than to put up obstacles that might get in the way of them finding their True Loves."

She reads the look in his eyes a second too late. "David..." she weakly manages, but the wind is theoretically knocked out of her sails.

He says it anyways.

"What if they are each other's True Love?"


End file.
